- [ 翻譯此頁 ]The Gandharan city of Taxila was an important Buddhist centre of ....Gandharan art flourished and produced some of the best pieces of Indian sculpture. ...

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The current state of research on Gandharan art

2011/03/25

Head of a Buddha (Ryukoku)

Editor's Note: The following articles are translations of reviews carried by the latest issue of Kokka, a prestigious art magazine published in Japan. The publication, which specializes in old Japanese and Oriental art, was founded in 1889 by Tenshin Okakura, a well-known Japanese art critic and philosopher (1862-1913), among others. It is held in high esteem by researchers and experts aboard.

By AKIRA MIYAJI

Major changes have occurred in the study of Gandharan art since 1980 as dizzying amounts of activity have taken place in the field. Numerous symposia have been held, research reports published, and exhibitions held. For example, the Gandharan Art and Bamiyan Site exhibition, organized by the author, was held from 2007 through 2008 at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art and other sites.

The exhibition Gandhara--The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Legends, Monasteries and Paradise began an European tour starting in Mainz in 2008 (catalogue edited by M. Jansen, C. Luczanitz, et al). Amidst this activity, three major things have occurred: 1) important results have been obtained from the excavation of Swat Valley sites by an Italian team and the publication of their findings; 2) treasure hunting type excavations have been rampant, resulting in massive amounts of Gandharan sculpture on the Japanese and Western markets; and 3) not only sculpture, but also large numbers of Buddhist manuscripts, stele texts and other artifacts that are critical for an understanding of the true state of Buddhist affairs during their period, have also become known.

In particular, the Italian excavations at the Swat Valley sites Butkara I, Panr and Saidu Sharif I all trace the changes in the arrangement of Buddhist temples, while also advancing our understanding of sculptural types. This article focuses in particular on the early period of Gandharan art.

J. Marshall has previously focused on the sculptural types of the Saka-Parthian period (mid 1st century BC to mid 1st century AD) excavated at such sites as the Sirkap ruins and the Dharmarajika Buddhist temple site. In addition, there are the ruins and sculptural styles excavated by Italian researchers at Butkara I, which are important in a consideration of the initial period of Gandharan art chronology. The project chief, D. Faccenna, has clarified the existence of square-based stupas (small stupas 14 and 17) which are a fusion of Hellenistic and ancient Indian elements dating from the first half of the 1st century (ca. AD 20) at Butkara I, and indicated that the relief sculpture of this period is in a style known as the drawing style.

The many sculptures excavated at Butkara I that Faccenna has classified as drawing style require more study as they are not all the same style, and it can be posited that they were created across a considerable time period. However, thanks to Faccenna's excavations and research, the initial period of Gandharan art needs to be revised to focus on the Saka-Parthian period. J. E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, Ch. Fabregues, G. Fussman and M. Carter have all considered the beginnings of Gandharan art from various angles. The author has also discussed the earliest aspects of Gandharan art going back to the first half to mid 1st century, considering the decorative motifs, the bodhisattva images, the scenes of the Buddha's life story, symbolical representation of the Buddha and the figures of the Buddha, all while offering the group of relief sculptures that present "the Gods Entreat the Buddha to Preach" as the oldest Buddhist figural expression.

Further, the results of the Saidu Sharif I excavations are also important, with their original 60 to 65 relief panels of the Buddha's life story that were inlaid into the cylindrical base of the site's main stupa. These panels were created in a style that was based on the drawing style and then developed into splendidly realistic depiction. Faccenna has placed the production date to the 2nd quarter to mid 1st century, but they probably date from the latter half of the 1st century, after the beginning of the Kushan dynasty. Unfortunately the relief sculptures of the Buddha's life story only remain in fragmentary form, though they can probably be surmised as originally tracing the life of the Buddha from birth to nirvana. They are an important example in our consideration of the establishment of the continuous style of the relief sculpture of the Buddha's life story that forms one of the major characteristics of Gandharan art.

In addition, the so-called toilet-trays are another important art work type for consideration of the early period of Gandharan art. In recent years Tanabe Katsumi has presented detailed studies of the iconography depicted on these toilet-trays, and has offered up a fascinating explanation of these works as the product of the Greek-descent Buddhist worshippers. The author agrees with the explanation that the images on these toilet-trays are on the theme of salvation of the soul of the deceased. However, the author thinks that the majority of Gandharan toilet-trays are not directly related to Buddhist beliefs, but rather had been fostered in the midst of Gandharan Buddhism.

(The author is an art historian specializing in South and central Asian art, a professor emeritus of Nagoya University, a professor of Ryukoku University and curator of Ryukoku Museum.)

* * *

Standing Buddha

Schist, Fig. H. 175.0 cm

(Agon Shu)

By YOSHIHIDE KOIZUMI

The Gandharan Buddhist sculptures that were created in the region that first began the production of Buddhist sculptures exhibit a realistic depictive style based on Greco-Roman traditions. This sculpture has natural folds in the drapery spanning both of its shoulders, while also revealing other adroit sculptural techniques such as the depiction of individual toes. It is clearly apparent today that the right arm was a later addition, made from other material, and probably this hand would have originally been arranged in the abhaya mudra gesture signifying, "have no fear." Gandharan sculpture was normally carved from a single block of stone, down to the sides of the pedestal, but here the sides and front of the pedestal have been carved from separate pieces of stone.

Many of the Gandharan Buddhas and examples from around the 3rd to 4th century from Central Asia and China have holes in the tops of their heads. Originally these would have been used for the placement of relics or remains. This sculpture lacks that feature, but there is an approximately one centimeter square indentation at the base of the chest, and it is possible that this area served the same purpose.

Gandhara experienced a turning point in the arrangement of its Buddhist temple grounds. As in the preceding early ancient period, the stupa formed the center of the temple complex, but in this case ritual halls were built around it and Buddhist sculptures enshrined in them. Along with the beginning of the worship of Buddhist sculptures, there was also a linking of Buddhist sculptures and relics, thus further adding to the importance of Buddhist sculptures.

(The author is an art historian specializing in South and central Asian art, research associate of Kyushu National Museum.)

* * *

Bodhisattva Maitreya with Crossed Legs

Schist, Fig. H. 62.0 cm

(The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum, Yamanashi prefecture)

By KASTUMI TANABE

The bodhisattva Maitreya is seated on a low throne (kline) with his feet crossed at the ankles and resting on a footstool. The Brahmanic arrangement of his hair at the top of the head, in two loops forming a horizontal figure eight, indicates that this is the bodhisattva Maitreya. Crossed legs are one of the Maitreya characteristics observed in Gandharan art, originally derived from the Central Asian nomadic sitting posture.

His beard and una (symbol of Xvarnah and legitimate kingship) on the forehead are features shared by Kushan and Parthian kings as seen on their coinage. The figure wears a necklace whose two terminals are decorated with the head of Ketos, a Greek sea monster and divine escort of the souls of the dead to the other world. He also wears a sacred string or thread (yajnopavita), along with another symbol of Brahmin caste, a water flask (kamandalu) held in the left hand, though now unfortunately lost.

(The author is an historian specializing in Central and west Asian art and a professor of Chuo University.)

* * *

Buddha Triad

Schist, Fig. H. 62 cm

(Agon Shu)

By AKIRA MIYAJI

The excavation site of this Gandharan Buddha triad is unknown. Formerly in the collection of Claude de Marteau in Brussels, today it is owned by the Agon Shu Buddhist organization in Japan. The central figure is a Buddha seated on a lotus pedestal with hands arranged in the dharmacakra or preaching mudra, while the two side figures are standing bodhisattvas, all carved in high relief that is almost sculpture in the round. The upper bodies of Brahma and Indra are shown behind the shoulders of the central Buddha, while the Buddha-field is shown above his head in the form of imaginary flowering trees.

The bodhisattva on the left has his hair arranged in a topknot, and though his left hand is missing, it probably originally held a water flask, and thus is thought to be Maitreya bodhisattva. The figure on the left has his hair arranged in a turban decoration, and the small Buddha figure attached to the front of that turban has his hands arranged in the dhyana or meditation mudra and thus it can be surmised that this small Buddha is Avalokitesvara bodhisattva.

This sculptural group is closely related both in iconography and style to two Buddha Triads (Peshawar Museum, nos. 1527 and 277) that were excavated at Sahri-Bahlol. This sculpture has a Kharosthi inscription on its pedestal, and the inscription, "5th year," that suggests the year it was dedicated. The author hypothesizes that this is probably the Post-Kushan dynasty usage of the Kaniska reign date, omitting the 100 year letters, where Kaniska 105 = AD 231. There are at present 42 known examples of Gandharan Buddha triads. The majority center on Sakyamuni with attendants Maitreya bodhisattva and Avalokitesvara bodhisattva in the Mahayana Buddha manifestation theory. This work stands as a representative example of this type and is important for our understanding of Mahayana Buddhist art in Gandhara.

* * *

Panel with Three Episodes: (1) Subjugation of the Elephant (2) Skull-Tapper (3) The Boy Tied to a Tree

Schist H. 60.8 cm, W. 29.5 cm

(The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum, Yamanashi prefecture)

By KATSUMI TANABE

Three horizontal sections presenting episodes taken from the life of the Buddha are arranged vertically. The top section depicts the well-known subjugation of the ferocious elephant Nalagiri or Dhanapala. This elephant was driven by Devadatta, a cousin and antagonist of the Buddha, who wanted to kill him. Eventually, the elephant rushed to the Buddha but was pacified by his miraculous power.

The second section depicts the story of the Brahmin Vangisa (Mrgasiras) who had the power to foresee the exact place of rebirth following death by tapping the relevant skull. However, he was unable to place the location of the deceased monk Udena (Udyana) who had attained nirvana. The Buddha explained this reason to Vangisa, who then acknowledged the superiority of the Buddha by becoming his disciple.

The third section depicts the story of the Buddha rescuing a boy who was tied by his elder brother to a tree in a secluded cemetery. The elder brother was ordered by his wicked wife to kill his younger brother because she did not want to give him any portion of the inheritance left by their father. After his rescue, the boy became a disciple of the Buddha.

* * *

Standing Hariti

Schist, Fig. H. 123 cm

(Agon Shu)

By YOSHIHIDE KOIZUMI

Hariti is one of the indigenous Indian deities, and a popular goddess related to childbirth, childrearing and family well-being. In terms of figural depiction, this goddess imagery has been conflated with that of such goddesses as Tyche, the Greek goddess who protected cities and their wealth, and the Iranian goddess Ardra. It is thought that production of images of this goddess began during the Kushan dynasty. This figure is strictly forward facing and flat, its connection with Parthian art has been indicated.

The expression of the hips is also shared by figures excavated at Butkara I in Swat, thus suggesting a possible production site and date to the 1st century. The citadel style crown worn by this figure is known to be the type worn by Tyche. This feature is thought to have reached Gandhara via Parthia, but it is hard to find other figures of this deity with this crown feature, suggesting that this crown type was not necessarily an essential feature of Hariti images. This crown type shows that the attributes of this goddess had not yet been fully organized and the early date of its production led to the eclectic nature of its form.

* * *

Head of a Buddha

Stucco, Fig. H. 40.0 cm

(Ryukoku)

By SHUMPEI IWAI

This stucco Buddha head was excavated near Tarbela in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The head measures approximately 40 cm high, 20 cm wide and 30 cm deep. The idealized facial expression on this head is typical of the stucco images excavated in the North-West Frontier, characterized by its hollow philtrum and infralabial carving, and high ushnisha. Traces of the original polychrome decoration remain on the surface of the image. Similar stucco image examples have been excavated across a wide area stretching from Hadda to Taxila.

It is highly likely that this image dates to the 4th or 5th century, but given that the dating of stucco figures remains uncertain, it is hard to specifically date this work. In particular, the Taxila cultural region that includes Tarbela began to produce stucco at the latest in the 1st century, and thus it is not simply compared to the strictly defined Gandharan region.

(The author is an art historian specializing in Central Asian art, a lecturer of the Ryukoku Museum.)

Published: March 17, 2011

WHEN the Metropolitan Museum of Art makes a big curatorial decision, it tends to do so with the kind of grave deliberation that goes into a papal bull. Gut feeling is not a prized consideration. But in the spring of 2009, in a dust-covered basement workshop in Fez, Morocco, a young curator in the museum’s Islamic department sat among a group of artisans — workers in traditional North African tile, plaster and wood ornament whose roots stretched back seven generations in the trade — and asked the company’s chief executive yet again why the museum should enlist them for an unusual mission.

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The executive, a boyish-looking man named Adil Naji, reached over and took hold of the wrist of one of his younger brothers, Hisham. He hoisted the brother’s rough, callused fingers in front of the curator, Navina Haidar, and, with a climactic intensity that wouldn’t have been out of place in “Lawrence of Arabia,” exclaimed, “Look, this is my brother’s hand!”

As Ms. Haidar recalled recently, back in the much less cinematic confines of a museum construction site: “It was a very powerful moment. It made up our minds because we could see how close he was to the tradition. And we wanted to see that hand on our walls.”

She and her colleagues had gone to Morocco in search of help for a kind of project that the Metropolitan, which generally concerns itself with the work of dead artists, has rarely undertaken in its 140 years: to install a group of living artists inside the museum for the purposes of creating a permanent new part of its collection.

The last time such a thing happened was in 1980, when Brooke Astor underwrote the re-creation of a Ming dynasty garden courtyard, made by more than two dozen master builders from Suzhou, China, who spent four months on the job within the museum’s Chinese painting galleries, working with hand tools unchanged for generations.

Almost 30 years later the museum was embarking on the most ambitious rethinking and rebuilding of its Islamic art galleries in its history, a $50 million endeavor. At the heart of those galleries, which will open in the fall after being closed six years, it dreamed of showcasing the defining feature of Moroccan and southern Spanish Islamic architecture: a medieval Maghrebi-Andalusian-style courtyard, which would function in much the same way such courtyards still do in the traditional houses and mosques of Marrakesh or Casablanca, as their physical and spiritual center.

The problem was that, while the museum owns entire blocks’ worth of historic architecture, it did not happen to have a medieval Islamic courtyard sitting around in storage anywhere. And so after months of debate about whether it could pull off such a feat in a way that would meet the Met’s standards, it essentially decided to order a courtyard up.

Which is how a group of highly regarded Moroccan craftsmen, many of whom had never set foot in New York, came essentially to take up residence at the Met beginning last December, working some days in their jabador tunics and crimson fezzes (known as tarbooshes in Morocco), to build a 14th-century Islamic fantasia in seclusion high above the Greek and Roman galleries as unknowing museum goers passed below.

With world attention focused on the Middle East, the courtyard has taken on an unforeseen importance for the museum; for the Kingdom of Morocco itself, which has followed the project closely; and for a constituency of Muslim scholars and supporters of the Met. They hope it will function not only as a placid chronological way station for people moving through more than a millennium of Islamic history, but also as a symbol, amid potent anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States and Europe, that aesthetic and intellectual commerce remains alive between Islam and the West.

“Every one of these guys here knows what this means, what’s riding on this,” said Mr. Naji, 35, the president and chief executive of Arabesque, a company of craftsmen founded in Fez in 1928 by his great-grandfather, now run by Mr. Naji and three of his brothers.

It was late December, and he was gesturing across a cluttered, unadorned room that didn’t look like much of a symbol, much less a reimagined medieval courtyard, except for high metal armatures suggesting the forms of arches. Mr. Naji’s brother Hisham, 33, of the callused and persuasive hand, stood atop a scaffold covered in plaster dust. Below him, covering a swath of the floor, lay tens of thousands of pieces of clay tile, many not much bigger than grains of rice, fitted together face down in a big rectangle that looked like a shallow sandbox scored with impossibly intricate lines. The tiles had been shipped from Fez, where large pieces had been fired in ovens fueled with olive pits and sawdust and then hand cut into individual shapes by 35 workers over a period of four months.

Inside the Met that morning an Arabesque specialist in this kind of painstaking mosaic work, known as zellij, sat cross-legged, placing some of the final pieces into the arrangement with tweezers as another scattered dry grout between the tiles. Handfuls of water were then sprinkled like ablutions over these areas to begin to cement the pieces in place. And when it was all dried, the dado panel was hoisted up into its place along one of the courtyard walls, filling the room for the first time with the kind of kaleidoscopic color and tessellated patterning meant to transport visitors from Fifth Avenue to Fez. (The tiles’ traditional function is to soften the solidity of the walls. “The surface is seemingly dissolved,” Jonas Lehrman, an architectural scholar, wrote in “Earthly Paradise: Garden and Courtyard in Islam,” a 1980 study. “Yet throughout the entire organization, even the smallest units are related by the overriding discipline of the geometry.”)

Over the course of two months a reporter and photographer were invited to watch as the space began to transform slowly from a 21-by-23-foot drywall box — illuminated by an LED panel in the ceiling cleverly mimicking daylight — to a courtyard with tile patterns based on those in the Alhambra palace in Granada, above which rise walls of fantastically filigreed plaster, leading to a carved cedar molding based on the renowned woodwork in the 14th-century Attarin madrasa, or Islamic school, in Fez.

The men from Morocco, 14 in all, came in waves, and despite suffering through their first New York winter, they settled comfortably into two large condominiums in Jackson Heights, Queens, accommodations that Adil Naji persuaded the owner, a Lebanese man, to lease to them, even though it was a nonrental building, by describing their mission at the Met. The men hired a local Moroccan woman to cook for them, and every morning they carry their kebabs and couscous in lunch boxes to the Met.

Occasionally New York still throws a curve ball or two. After a recent breakfast in Queens with the company’s lawyer, the men made their way to the No. 7 train, and the oldest Naji brother, Mohammed, 40 — the family’s most revered craftsman, a maalem, or master carver — was almost arrested after his monthly Metrocard failed to swipe properly, and he simply walked through an open emergency gate. On the subway later, wearing his customary street clothes — pointy-toed cowboy boots, baseball cap, a baby-blue fur-lined jacket — he seemed unperturbed, smiling broadly.

Adil Naji, who went to college in Washington and speaks perfect English, asked his brother how he could be so calm, and then translated the answer: “He said: ‘I had a lawyer, a reporter and a photographer with me. What was going to happen?’ ”

Sheila R. Canby, who was recruited two years ago from the British Museum to lead the Met’s Islamic department and oversee the renovation of the galleries, said that the back and forth between the craftsmen and the curators had sometimes been tumultuous. The Moroccans, who are known for their restoration work on important mosques and other landmarks in the Middle East, are in essence living historians who have carried on patterns and designs preserved in practice for generations. But they have never attempted a job requiring this level of historical attention or artistry, one whose goal is to look as authentic to Moroccan eyes as to those of scholars.

“We have been very difficult clients, sending drawings back over and over again,” Ms. Canby said recently, watching the men work. “We didn’t want any intrusions of modern interpretation.”

Ms. Haidar added, “They’d say to us, ‘But our great grandfathers did it this way,’ and we would tell them, ‘We’re taking you even further back into your history.’ ”

Adil Naji, listening in, shrugged his shoulders diplomatically. “It was fun to go back and forth,” he said.

Ms. Canby laughed out loud: “You say that now.”

Perhaps almost as remarkable as the presence of the craftsmen inside the Met is that the team of scholars and planners who recruited them and have collaborated closely with them is composed mostly of women, one of them Israeli. Besides Ms. Canby and Ms. Haidar, the group includes Nadia Erzini, an art historian and curator at the Museum of Islamic Life in Tétouan, Morocco; Mahan Khajenoori, from the museum’s construction department; and Achva Benzinberg Stein, an expert on Moroccan courts and gardens and a professor of landscape architecture at City College.

On a recent visit to the museum Ms. Stein became emotional surveying the work under way, describing how she had fallen in love with books about Moroccan architecture as a young woman in Tel Aviv but had been unable to travel there until the mid-1970s because she was Israeli. “This is like the culmination of a life’s work for me,” she said, wiping away tears. “To me it means the possibility of so many things, of peace.”

By late February inside the courtyard the wall tile work had been completed, and the woodwork, as redolent as a cedar closet, had been mostly installed. Still to come before the opening in the fall would be a specially designed self-circulating fountain and benches designed by Ms. Stein.

Mohammed Naji and seven other plaster carvers had just set to work on the most painstaking part of the job, incising interlaced patterns into the still-soft wall, arabesques and other forms so tiny and complex that each man can sometimes complete only a four-inch square over the course of a day.

“This kind of work is really not done anymore in Morocco — it’s too time consuming, too cost prohibitive,” Adil Naji said, watching his eldest brother sitting on a stool, peering over a pair of reading glasses, carving with a thin wood-handled knife and pausing metronomically every few seconds to lean forward and blow the dust from the crevices.

Mr. Naji beamed, but he conceded, as he watched the company’s greatest work taking shape, that one thing worried him.

“Two of my guys told me that they wanted to retire after this, because they couldn’t see a way to top it,” he said. “I wake up at night with this fear that when we’re done, they’re all going to stand back and look at it and hang up their tools for good.”

2011年3月16日 星期三

Design

How to Ruin a Great Design

Published: March 13, 2011

LONDON — Potholes. Traffic jams. Road closures. Snarky drivers. Security scares. No left turns here. No right turns there. As if that list of the infuriating obstacles you’re likely to encounter when driving around London wasn’t long enough, you can now add something else — sloppily designed traffic signs.

Transport for London

PSA Peugeot Citroën

Citroën’s chose a corporate cookie cutter logo.

Duh, you may think. Why grouch about traffic signs, if you risk being stuck in gridlock or snapped by surveillance cameras while making a cheeky U-turn to avoid being “diverted” for several miles? But some of Britain’s new road signs deserve to be grumbled about because they are shameful examples of the category of bad design that is best described as “a crime against design.”

Bad design comes in many forms. Things that are unsafe. Things that don’t work properly, or are unnecessarily complicated. Things that are ethically or environmentally unsound. Crimes against design are different. They deprive us of the joy of great design, by wrecking or replacing it.

Some, though thankfully not all, of Britain’s newest traffic signs are guilty of the first offense by spoiling something special: the road signage system designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert between 1957 and 1967. There was nothing showy about it. Those signs were models of logic and legibility in a pleasing, but unobtrusive style. They were everything that intelligently designed road signs should be.

Take the “Diverted cyclists” sign I spotted in Marylebone recently. It consists of two words, an arrow and a symbol of a cycle. How could anyone mess that up, especially since the typeface is the one designed by Kinneir and Calvert for the original system, and the colors are the same combination of black and yellow that they chose for temporary signs? But mess it up someone did, by inexplicably making the “D” in “Diverted” much bigger than the other letters. Not only does it look clumsy, but your eye is so distracted by the “D” that it is hard to concentrate on what the sign says.

The same applies to other recent changes to Kinneir and Calvert’s meticulously planned system. Symbols are poorly drawn, with distractingly fussy detailing. Inconsistencies appear: one sign reads “Tower Bridge,” another “Tower bridge.” Individually these gaffes seem inconsequential, but collectively they are as confusing as the original designs were clear and reassuring.

The worst of the new traffic signs are typical of what can occur when whoever takes charge of an intelligently designed system lets things slip. It’s easy to see how this can happen. First, no one is likely to care quite so much about the system as the people who conceived it. Second, such systems need to evolve over time: in this instance, with the emergence of new types of road hazards and traffic management technology.

But there is no need for standards to fall. Not all of the new signage is sloppy. Much as I hate the congestion charge that motorists have to pay when driving in or out of central London, its red and white “C” symbol is clear, coherent and pleasing to the eye in Kinneir and Calvert’s unshowy style.

“Letting things slip” isn’t the only sub-category of crimes against design. Another is the “unworthy successor” syndrome, which usually happens when a company hires a design consulting firm to “refresh” an inspired piece of design, only to end up with something similar, but depressingly inferior.

UPS did this by replacing the wonderful “present” logo designed by Paul Rand in 1961, with a dispiritingly bland version devised by the global design group FutureBrand. The new logo is described on FutureBrand’s Web site as “a simplified dynamic curve” that expresses “the evolution of the company’s services and its commitment to leading the future of global commerce.” A waggish design blogger summed it up more succinctly as the “golden combover.” Each time I see it, I yearn for its predecessor.

The same fate befell Citroën, when it hired Landor, another global branding group, to redesign the logo it had used since its foundation in 1919. The old logo was a pair of upturned Vs modeled on the herringbone gears invented by the company’s founder André-Gustave Citroën. Whenever I saw it, I remembered that Citroën was rooted in design and innovation, and had once produced such remarkable cars as the gutsy 2CV and beautiful DS 19 saloon.

Sadly, Landor has reduced the original shapes of those herringbone gears to characterless digital smudges as part of what its Web site calls a “360-degree branding platform,” whatever that means. Rather than looking like a company that is justifiably proud of its engineering heritage (no bad thing for a car maker), Citroën now resembles yet another corporate cookie cutter with a bland, instantly forgettable, but probably rather expensive logo.

Trashing your own design history as UPS and Citroën have done is one thing, but some companies commit another subcategory of crimes against design by compromising someone else’s. McDonald’s did this when it redesigned its European fast food joints, helped by the French designer Philippe Avanzi.

One of the new design schemes included the elegant Egg and Series 7 chairs, designed in the 1950s by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen. (Even if you don’t know the names, you’ll recognise those chairs as screaming “20th-century classic.”) McDonald’s ordered several thousand of them from the original manufacturer Fritz Hansen, only for an embarrassing row to erupt when it also bought cheap copies of those chairs from another company.

Understandable though Fritz Hansen’s fury was, didn’t the company realize that by selling such distinctive chairs to McDonald’s it risked redefining them from “20th century classic” into something to slump on while scarfing McNuggets? Though that can’t have made it any less furious about an entirely new set of chairs that McDonald’s commissioned from Mr. Avanzi.

It’s tempting to describe those as a McTribute to Jacobsen because the elegant shapes of his chairs have been distorted into kitschy new forms that mock the originals, and add another crime against design to the McDonald’s rap sheet.